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GospelMT 5:1-12

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Gospel JN 3:16-18

Dear Followers of Jesus,

As we (normally) enter the church building, we dip our fingers into the baptismal water. We fling water over our bodies, marking them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We often do this gesture without thinking, our hands not quite reaching our forehead, chest and shoulders.

We may continue this gesture before mealtime prayer or when we tuck our children into bed or begin praying the Rosary. This gesture has been handed down to us for generations. Making the Sign of the Cross on our bodies unites us with God and to one another. This Christian witness comes from our baptism.

On this Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity, we celebrate the union of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This mystery seems so otherworldly and out of our reach. However, at the essence of this celebration, lies the deep communion of God. This profound unity of the Trinity teaches us how to become people of God on the earth.

We are called to live in unity on earth. This unity reflects our heavenly home. We are living in fragile times. We are experiencing the killing of minorities, abuse of power, cultural unrest, and disunity. Violence rises when some of our voices are not heard, when the unity of humanity is threatened.

As Christians, we are challenged to enter the chaos. What we have to offer is a voice that needs to be heard by all sides, by all people, by all generations. What we have to offer the world is a voice of continuity that all human beings share the same value, no matter our race, no matter our political backgrounds, no matter our economic status.

Our voices of unity fall upon deaf ears when we are not living our lives with integrity. We easily fall into the trap of thinking that God must be on our side because we have power, authority, wealth, respect, and of course we follow all cultural rules and obligations. Faith is not about privilege. Faith is not about power or living our lives apart from the world. Faith is meant for us to dig deeply into our human condition and lift up those most in need of healing and wholeness, dignity and respect.

We are called as believers to live with humility. We need to learn how to be citizens in our culture that invite people together, not shun them, or make fun of the lowly, or cast blame upon people who we think are different. It is so easy to blame the weak for anything we do not want to take responsibility for. So often, we want to dominate life and cultural because of skin color and language, because of educational background, and ethnic history.

We are called to gather people into unity, just a God lives. The Trinity gives us a template as how to live even in these uneasy times. Three Persons in One, this is the model for us even here on earth. We are challenged to listen to people who feel they have no voice. We are challenged to explore ways to speak a language of peace no matter who we are or how we live. We are challenged by faith to end violence, racial divides and most of all to continue to discover our common humanity. We are one in God, just as God longs to be in relationship with God’s people.

Throughout our centuries, we have used flimsy images of the Trinity. The triangle or the shamrock has been held up to express the image of unity. The real image of The Most Holy Trinity is when we face divisions and allow God to heal them. The Trinity is revealed when we lift up the poor, settle our disputes, and give the oppressed freedom in our day and in our time. “Peace” is the manifestation of God in our midst.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” JN 3

 God give you peace,

Fr. Ron

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Gospel MK 12:38-44

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Gospel MK 12:35-37

Fr. Hesburgh, CSC and Martin Luther King, Chicago, June 1964

Click here to read more about Hesburgh chairing the Civil Rights Commission 

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Gospel MK 12:28-34

My dear followers of Jesus,

I grew up just minutes from the University of Notre Dame. During my high school days, I watched Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, CSC on the local news speak about the issues of the world. I watched him as chair of the Civil Rights Commission, as President of Notre Dame, and as a priest, speak about justice, racism, poverty and hunger. The message I received from the television was that the Church was not a building, but a way of life that brings hope in Jesus Christ to a hurting world.

What I saw on television in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in that small town revealed to me that ministry and life itself was meant to lift people up, not to put them down. I saw a local priest as a world citizen bring hope to many while I watched in awe on a small screen. He counseled five different popes and other world leaders all while remaining in his position at Notre Dame for thirty-five years.

In my own priesthood, I have spent many years among people marginalized by society. In my days in downtown Portland, I worked among people who never got a break in life. A very high percentage of the men who came to our hospitality center were sexually abused as children and nearly all of the women. Many people started drinking alcohol when they were seven or eight years old. Many of our people suffered from mental illness because of early trauma and years living outside. No person there could afford going to a doctor, a clinic or the emergency room.

Everyone who came to our parish carried the weight of other people’s put downs and negative attitudes. They were blamed for restaurants in the neighborhood closing because they had no place to sleep but in doorways. Other churches blamed people in poverty for violence and sexual abuse of children, so the church-school down the street built higher fences. The people surviving poverty were blamed for not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. The only problem was that none of them could afford boots.

I learned to listen to people who on the surface were different from myself. The more I leaned into their stories, the more similar we became. They thought I was different too. We had to meet on a ground of hope, on the soil of common humanity. Skin color, ethnic origin, family histories and the number of years in school, were stories told in order to get to know people.

I learned much more from folks in those years than I can ever articulate. I learned much about my own skin color and how privileged I am in every aspect of how I view the world. I learned that my vast education is meaningless unless I use wisdom to listen. I learned that my prayer to an invisible God is also meaningless unless I learn every day how to live for other people. I learned that my solitude as a priest is a waste of time unless I enter into deep relationship with people who teach me how to long for God.

I have spent years working on my conversion toward empathy among people who survive without power in our culture. I am deaf to so much around me because I am not hungry. I am housed and given respect. I am still learning how to love when other people’s experience is one of pain, hardship, poverty and grief. I am still learning to walk with people who teach me how to live beyond the confines of my own sheltered past.

Today is the memorial service for George Floyd. Many people will stand in silence across the globe. We will hold his life and his anguish in the silence. We will hold the systemic racism of our culture in the silence. We will hold his loved ones and his lost dreams in the silence. We will hold all black men who have been murdered in the silence. We will also hold in the silence our longing for peace. We will hold God’s love for all people in the silence. We will hold our own corruption, negative attitudes and arrogance in the silence. In the silence we will feel something more than our own ability to breathe.

Today, in the silence, I will recall the images on the small screen from years ago that all people are part of God’s plan. In the silence, I will hear the voices of people who struggle to breathe while still on earth and those who now live with God forever. I will beg God to teach me how to love with my own heart, mind, soul, skin color, and conscience. I will ask God to teach me how to love Him, and to love my neighbor as myself. I will rest in the love of God, the Kingdom here on earth.

God give you peace.

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Gospel MK 12:18-27

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Gospel MK 12:13-17

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Gospel JN 20:19-23

Prayers of the Faithful

Pentecost 2020

Let us pray to be guided by the strong wind of the Holy Spirit within our Church. May we seek integrity in prayer and service in the Diocese of Colorado Springs.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to lift up the leadership of the baptized, and to lift up all who work to sustain the Church’s mission of service and healing.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for justice for people, for an end of racism in our cities, for an end of misogyny and xenophobia. May we build a Church on unity and hope for all people in the aftermath of COVID-19.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for healing by the Holy Spirit for all people who face difficulties in marriage, those who struggle to raise and support their young children, for people who cannot care for their ailing parents, and for those who have lost their jobs.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for integrity and peace across the globe. Let us rely solely on Pentecost to heal lives and to provide hope for people as we pick up the pieces of joblessness and despair after this pandemic.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to be guided by the strong wind of love for our beloved dead whom we have cared for on earth. May Pentecost strengthen our unity and provide hope for the grieving.

We pray to the Lord.

Homily

My Dear Followers of Jesus,

Today is Pentecost. In our lifetimes, we have never celebrated Pentecost in such an unusual manner. We are only ten people gathered in this church that holds 491. So many of our friends are nowhere to be seen. Our recent graduates are not here to celebrate milestones. Those who have waited for Easter sacraments will continue to do so. Those who have lost loved ones remain silent in their grief. We cannot see the toddlers who have learned to walk since February. They may have even cut their teeth in isolation.

Our lower faces are covered with masks. We cannot view the spontaneous grins of delight as we recognize one another. Our hands are covered with sanitizer as we wait to hold our children’s children or the hands of our friends. Our Sign of Peace is a distant nod of our heads. Our favorite pews are roped off. We sit six feet from recognition and from love.

This pandemic, COVID-19, has pinned us down on asphalt. It sits firmly on our necks. We can’t breathe. 100,000 people have died. The virus knows no skin color or educational background or cultural status or political party. The ventilator has become an image of hope for us. Janitors, nurses, doctors and first-responders have been lifted up and our eyes are filled with tears of gratitude. Our eyes staring over masks reveal the exhaustion we feel having been isolated. Our eyes reveal the questions we have about this virus and our social policies, our fears and our faith. Our eyes capture our longing to be together again, to be recognized, and to be loved.

Our gospel from John reveals hope in the dark confines of fear. Jesus appears, even though the doors are locked. Jesus appears to those who self-quarantined out of fear of death. The disciples did not know how to change their grief into hope on their own. They were stymied as to how to carry on when they thought the source of love was dead. They waited, bearing the weight of fear in their eyes and in the shortness of their breath.

And then, as if from out-of-the-blue, the one they knew, Jesus himself came to them. The first word out of his mouth was, “Peace.” Can you image how their bodies relaxed, how their spirits came alive as they recognized his voice. They thought they would never hear that tender and courageous voice again. “Peace”.

He revealed to them his bodily scars. Then…then, in a profound moment of joy, he breathed on them. They were the first to receive the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, in John’s gospel, happened on the day of resurrection. Their bodies relaxed, the chokehold of fear was released. They could breathe again.

My dear believers in the Holy Spirit, today we bring all the pain of our world to this moment of Pentecost. We ask today for everything. We leave nothing out because everything is possible in the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is the most important feast in the Church. This is the feast of possibility, of wonder and of dreaming. This is the feast that knows no bounds. The Spirit cannot be locked up or washed away or given institutional boundaries.

We lift up our weary parents and the children who are worried about their futures. We lift up the needs of people and their lack of opportunity. We lift up our Church that struggles to know how to bring the peace of Jesus to the streets. We hope that a new fire will take hold from our baptismal waters even though our fonts are empty of water. I know there is fire in that font!

We pray in the Holy Spirit all the ways in which we can’t breathe because of grief, loss, and fear about our futures. We bring everything to God and ask for a new breath as face the ongoing fears of racism and violence in our culture and even the huge divides within our Church. Come, Holy Spirit, Come.

We bring in this celebration of Pentecost the needs of people. We need to understand foreign languages of peace and reconciliation. Let’s take seriously Psalm 104, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”

We may still be quarantined on Pentecost, but we are never alone as Church. Our prayer here and our prayer behind the locked doors of our homes are fire for the world. Jesus says to us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Let us place our prayer in mouths of those who cannot breath. Let us breath deeply into the promise that God is with us forever and ever.

Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

God give you peace.